Monty Python's Flying Circus on Netflix

Netflix has dumped a ton of Monty Python related material recently - best of shows, clip reels, live performances, remembrances, biographies.

I've decided to go back to the source material: 4 series, 45 episodes, aired in Britain from 1969-1974. Python has been kind of ubiquitous in my life (although the Marx Brothers were much earlier and more formative), but I'm not sure I've ever done a canonical viewing of the show. The ensemble became known for stand-alone sketch / bit comedy that fans have come to know by heart, but many of the belly laughs of viewing the original shows come from the way sketches bleed over into each other, or show up again later in the show.

My most recent watch (Series 2, Episode 1) features the "New Cooker" sketch, and the long line of service techs patiently waiting to enter the sketch pop up several times later in the show; the classic "Ministry of Silly Walks" (Cleese silly walks through the following sketch at least once), and "Ethel the Frog / Piranha Brothers" which I remembered mostly from a record album compilation, so there is a soundless bit in the middle I did not recall, as well as an addendum tacked on for the recording "...sorry squire, I've scratched the record....sorry squire, I've scratched the record....sorry squire, I've scratched the record....". And Spiny Norman's animated appearance during the credits is sort of the icing on the cake. "Dinsdale...."

My earliest Python memories were of my dad watching and laughing in our family room in PA, over the air via the local public station, quite possibly in black & white. I think we were both a little embarrassed about the occasional nudity (most often in Terry Gilliam's animated pastiches). I was a little too young for it to be appropriate (but was curious) and he seemed a little embarrassed for enjoying it as much as he did. I think he was looking for someone to share it with and I was not quite there yet.

Later on in high school, where the sketches bounced around pretty wildly in lunchroom banter and classroom cut-ups. I probably picked up a lot of it second hand, or through records - in those pre-internet, pre-DVD, pre-VCR, even pre-cable days (we were late acquirers) it was catch as catch can in terms of actually seeing the shows. And when I was able to watch a show, it was difficult to put some of the humor in context the way a serial viewing of the series provides, both in terms of repetitive themes as well as the evolution of the humor and the acting / comedy skills.

Holy Grail (1975) and Life of Brian (1979) neatly bookended my high school career - I'm sure I saw both in the theaters. But again, a different experience when one needs to pay and screen multiple times, rather than watching the film over and over the way a VCR, DVD or stream permits.

So...a nice little break from reality that I am savoring (rather than binge watching) and a chance to revisit a more innocent era, personally and culturally.